Last night was the second episode of Mary Queen of the High Street but as Clare Rayner has revealed in her TV review for BusinessZone, not everything in this Margate-based episode happened as it was portrayed on Channel 4.

The program (which has prompted a complaint to OFCOM from local business owners) was set in Margate because of the government-backed ‘Portas Pilot’ scheme that will give a share of a £1million prize fund to ‘town teams’ that could successfully test and implement innovative ideas that can be replicated in the High Streets of the UK.

There was an unfortunate standoff at the local council meeting and numerous factual inaccuracies in the program itself (details of which can be read by following the link below to Clare’s review) and the end result makes you wonder if there was any point to the scheme at all, other than to create an hour of television?